As the orchestra faded, there was a crackling silence, and then a voice announced, “Now speaks the Führer!” Then came another voice, the voice, intimately familiar to every German. On this day, Adolf Hitler announced the reintroduction of military conscription, and with it the rebuilding of a standing German army. His words reached an estimated 70 percent of German households, some 56 million people, more than any fireside chat had reached, almost certainly the largest broadcast audience to that point in human history.

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 382